Energy companies skirmishing over wind-power projects

NorthWestern Energy said Tuesday it will begin inviting bids on wind-power projects next month, but a company with a proposal already before the Public Service Commission said NorthWestern is dragging its feet on the process.

By the AP The Independent Record

NorthWestern will be studying how wind power might fit into the package of contracts that will supply electricity to its 300,000 Montana customers, said Mark Thompson, the company’s executive director of energy supply.
NorthWestern executives said they are concerned that a wind-power proposal by Navitas Energy of Minnesota and its subsidiary, Whitehall Wind, might not offer customers the best deal on wind power.

Navitas and Whitehall should drop the project and instead submit a bid to NorthWestern, said NorthWestern Energy’s Dennis Lopach.
Navitas and Whitehall Wind are asking the commission to set a rate for the 50-megawatt project as a special alternative energy project under federal and state law. NorthWestern then would have to accept power from the project.

Chris Moore, director of development for Navitas, said the company won’t drop its proposal, which is scheduled for a hearing before the commission on Friday. He said Navitas also plans to take part in the bidding process, proposing additional wind projects in Montana.

"There is a tremendous wind resource in Montana, and we’d like to put in as much wind as we can in Montana, to take advantage of that resource," he said.

Moore said NorthWestern Energy appears to be "dragging their feet" when it comes to getting a wind-power project up and running in the state.
It has ignored earlier offers from Navitas and didn’t announce a bidding process until now, months after the PSC rejected a prior wind contract, he said.

Moore noted that a federal tax credit for wind power expires at the end of next year.
Lopach said the wind-power bids would be due by January, and that NorthWestern Energy hopes to complete its study by spring, "in time to support project development, construction and implementation in 2003."

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